Those Quarrelsome Bonapartes which rather shocked her modesty, that her answer had rung through the aisles: "That is a question I do not think proper to answer, sir, and if you persist I shall leave this church." Like mother, like son, it seems, for when by an odd coincidence Napoleon, then with his regi- ment in France, had been reminded by his confessor of what he owed his sovereign, the boy had replied: "I did not come here to talk about Corsica. It is not a priest's business to catechize me on my duty to the king!" As for the tactless cleric in Ajaccio, needless to say, the archdeacon had seen to it that he soon left the parish; but the incident was often cited by Letizia's neighbors, by some admiringly as an evidence of fine spirit, by the jealous as a sign of her overweening pride. Now the words of the archdeacon roused her, and she returned with something of a mother's fears: "Thunder-storm sounds ominous"; then, more spirit- edly, "but it would not be surprising; the Ramolini should unleash at least one thunderbolt." "With no credit to the Bonapartes, eh?" Fesch re- torted, quizzically, yet not as if he wholly disagreed with her. Here Letizia noticed that the archdeacon looked weary, and she signaled Fesch to silence. And when they rose to leave, she scanned closely the face, that mask of old ivory and netted wrinkles, with the wisps of hair, gray and sulphur-yellow, falling lankly on the bolster, The eyes were closed, but the lips, still moving, repeated prophetically his last word, "thunder-storm*" Letizia had enough of the Corsican*s superstition to wonder how much of omen there was in this message from one who lay so close to the gates of Death; and the word